


Survivorship Bias

by EndoplasmicPanda



Series: Endo's Oneshots [10]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Comfort/Angst, Domestic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Sharing a Bed, Survivor Guilt, lio in this fic is basically me whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22399426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndoplasmicPanda/pseuds/EndoplasmicPanda
Summary: Survivor’s guilt. Lio knows the name of it. And now here he is: a victim of success, a victim of random happenstance. It could have been anyone else - should have been anyone else - but it was him that was in the right place at the right time. It washim.Why did it feel like a curse to win so necessarily?(Lio is a bit broken after the battle of Promepolis, and luckily for him, Galo knows exactly how to put him back together.)
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Series: Endo's Oneshots [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/723303
Comments: 3
Kudos: 152





	Survivorship Bias

It’s not that Lio is having a hard time of things, now that the world isn’t ending and he’s not on the run. Well - it's not _only_ that he's having a hard time of things.

Objectively, things have never been better. He can walk in broad daylight through the streets of Promepolis without having to look over his shoulder every three paces (he still does), can buy food at stalls and restaurants without feeling out of place (he still does), can live his life the way he always dreamed: normal, normal, normal (there’s nothing normal about it). 

And yet - there’s a guilt. Something painful and sharp burrows past his shoulderblades toward where his heart belongs, something that reminds him of that damned ice bullet from what felt like so long ago, and no amount of mindless, complacent normalcy does anything to stave it off. It’s exhausting and exhilarating in all the wrong ways - nothing like fire or war. Instead, he feels cold. Cold and dark and trapped inside his own head.

Of course, there’s always Galo. Galo’s always there, has always been there, always seems to _make_ himself be there when Lio’s having a day that’s probably classified septic on the shittiness scale. Oftentimes, he knows before Lio does, and that’s a whole separate panic - knowing something is wrong but not being wise enough to see it for yourself.

Three weeks pass. Four. Lio sleeps in a spare bunk at Burning Rescue’s firehouse, slipping away from the others after a mindless, unsatisfying day of work and burrowing himself away somewhere he can stew on his own mortality. Galo watches him go, even when the others barely notice. Galos always watches him go.

Survivor’s guilt. He knows the name of it. He heard it tossed around plenty when he was living in the burnish compound outside of Promepolis, watching families split apart and rebuild and split apart again, time after time, over and over. He never had time to think about it, never had time to let it catch up.

And now here he is: a victim of success. A victim of random happenstance. It could have been anyone else - _should_ have been anyone else - but it was him that was in the right place at the right time. It was _him_.

Why did it feel like a curse to win so necessarily?

There’s a knock on the door. The others are still in the common room, half-dressed, half-not, partly between shifts, watching a terrible movie on a projector downstairs. He can hear them laughing. Surprisingly, it helps.

Lio looks up from his cot and stares at the door. He knows who it is, he’s just deciding whether or not he wants to watch when Galo enters.

“What?”

The door creaks open and Galo is there, wearing a soft, grey-colored cotton shirt (surprisingly) and a pair of those ridiculous oversized uniform trousers he never seems to be without. 

“Hey, Lio,” Galo says, and he has the nerve to pause in the doorway, as though he’s afraid Lio is going to snap at him if he tried to enter. Was Lio really that obvious? Guilt slithered up his spine, a familiar, foreign friend. He misses his fire. “We’re watching a movie if you wanna come join us?”

“I’m tired,” Lio says, a little too sharp. Damn, damn, damn. He watches Galo still hovering in the doorway and his anger speaks for him. “Are you going to just stand there or are you going to come inside?”

For a brief moment, panic arcs across Lio’s heart when Galo leans back, almost as though he were walking away, leaving Lio to ferment. But Galo is Galo, and Galo doesn’t back away from things - Lio should know this by now. He can’t tell what’s more ridiculous: the fact Galo was obviously chewing on his own words for once, trying to come up with something appropriate to say, or the fact that Lio was achingly, painfully endeared.

He opts to sit up a bit instead. Galo, taking the invitation for what it was, stomps several confident steps inside, looking anywhere but Lio’s eyes in a way that was anything but. 

There’s another empty bunk in the room - it’s covered in boxes and cleaning supplies and a slew of other things from the move, after Kray Foresight had turned half the city into rubble and the two of them had turned the other half into dust. Galo pushes one box onto the floor with his boot and takes its place, grimacing when it collapses with an explosive, hissing crash.

“I think that’s Lucia’s,” Lio says absently. “She probably won’t be too happy about that.”

“Yeah, well.” Galo starts saying something almost smart, but apparently can’t get all the way there. Endearing, endearing, endearing. His eyes, always so bright, always so fierce, look different tonight - like doubt and indecision. It’s so incredibly foreign, so incredibly _wrong_ that Lio’s heart paces up and his anger intensifies, confused emotions bursting out of his soul the only way they know how. 

“Look, Galo, I don’t know what you think it is you need to say, but just say it.”

Galo doesn’t flinch. That, in the very least, is something Lio can take mild comfort in - that Galo would never flinch from something he said. But guilt is a mindless fool, and guilt had taken firm hold over Lio’s reason. It always wins.

“Are you really sleeping here?” Galo asks in a tone that sounds normal, would _be_ normal, but Lio knows him, can tell this is a serious question despite the playful edge. “I don’t think anyone even realizes this is a bedroom.”

Lio knows. He doesn’t say that, though. “It’s quiet,” is all he admits, because it’s enough of the truth to fill in the blanks.

Galo licks his lips, obviously thinking. “You should come stay with me?”

It’s a question, but it’s also not - a combination of words and sounds that don’t pair up properly. Lio isn’t sure whether to be confused or impressed. 

And then the meaning hits him like a block of ice, and Lio freezes. “What?” he asks.

“I have a spare room,” Galo says, sitting up straighter, gaining more confident and excited in equal measures each time he opens his mouth. “Or at least I think I do?”

“You don’t know if you have a spare bedroom?”

Galo waves a hand at him. “There’s a ton of boxes. How am I supposed to know if there’s a bedroom in there?”

Lio winces. “How do you get dressed in the morning? Honestly?” 

“Come on, Lio!” Galo whines, and ugh, he looks like a big puppy when he does that. “Just for tonight! You can see if you like it and then you can move in if you want. You don’t even have to pay rent!”

Lio watches him, dubious. “What’s the catch?” he asks. Oh, fuck. He’s actually considering it, isn’t he?

Galo blinks. “Catch?”

The catch, Lio realizes, is living with Galo in and of itself. The problem, Lio also realizes, is that he can’t tell if that’s good or bad. Not yet. 

* * *

People stop him on the street now. It’s… strange, to say the least.

Part of the benefit of being a burnish was the fact that they could, rather ironically, hide in the shadows. Lio never had a problem with slipping through crowds unseen when he needed to, or disappearing into one when a Freeze Force agent would catch a whiff of one of their trails.

Lio couldn’t do that anymore. The sea of unknown, unfamiliar faces was a welcome respite when he needed it - the promise of anonymity and freedom and _escape_ had been programmed into his brain, Pavlov-style, and now it was all falling apart: each time he was stopped on the sidewalk outside of his (Galo’s - not his, Galo’s) apartment complex on the way to the grocery store, or the gym, or to work, someone would spot him, recognize his mop of saggy green hair from across the street, and start a flood of recognition that would spread across (what felt like) the greater majority of Promepolis. 

And then he’d be stuck, signing autographs and taking timid selfies and staring at the _line_ , the honest to god _line_ that would start to form around the block….

“Hey, guys!” Galo’s voice booms behind him. It was the kind of voice that wasn’t designed to fit in anyone’s mouth, but Galo always seemed to make it work, even in his baggy day clothes and with a small backpack over his shoulder. _Endearing._

If there was one reason for which Lio was grateful of Galo, and there were far, far more than just one reason, it was that he was much more famous than Lio. At least in the public eye. The crowd moved, cleanly shifting gears from one savior of the world to the other, and Lio felt the suffocating pressure recede.

“Oh, I’m just going out,” Galo says loudly, answering a question and winking toward a flashing smartphone camera. “With my friend, actually!”

Lio blinks when Galo slings an arm over his shoulder, steering him backward. Galo’s motorcycle sits against the curb, still blissfully safe from public scrutiny; he was always careful to take it out at night when nobody else was around to see it. “I like my parking spot!” he had whined the week prior, when Lio suggested moving it somewhere else. “It’s convenient!”

But now he presses Lio against the handlebars, a silent request. Lio panics, looking up against the sunlight into Galo’s eyes, and hopes his stare asks all the questions that want to spool out of him at once: each one a different flavor of, “Are you sure?”

Galo just smiles. Galo always just smiles. It’s one of the things he’s best at. 

The crowd swarms them, rising around the bike like seawater, pouring into the street. It’s impossible to state how much of a superhero Galo is - there have been rumblings on morning political talk shows that he would have a decent shot of the Governor’s seat, should he want it. But he doesn’t. Lio knows that. Galo is a firefighter; firefighters can take many forms and occupy many jobs, but warming the seat behind a desk for purely congratulatory reasons would never be one of them.

Lio is too lost in thought to protest when Galo’s arms wrap around his middle and lift him up, high enough to clear the handlebars of the bike, and drop him (carefully, always so carefully) into the gas tank in front of him. 

Lio squawks, surprised, but Galo fires up the engine in the same instant and all Lio can do is hold on for dear life as he revs and peels away from the street edge, blazing a trail through the sea of civilians gathering around them.

He’s frozen, because Galo just _did that,_ and also because Galo’s _there,_ right behind him, so massively, perfectly shaped, and warm. So warm. 

“I’m going to have to move now, you know,” Galo says, chin leaning against Lio’s shoulder, and Lio hears him less from the sound of his voice carrying over the howl of the wind and the rumble of the engine and instead more from the way his chest vibrates, ear tickling from his breath.

And then Lio says, “Good,” and stops caring. Part of life is living, and that meant being selfish when it mattered. “Your apartment was starting to get too small for the two of us anyways.”

* * *

He’s on the floor of their new apartment, unpacking a box of movies in the living room, when Galo finally catches him having a breakdown.

It starts slow - a trickle of emotion that winds its way up his spine, a reverse waterfall. It drips into his skull in slow, steady thoughts: you’re not good enough. You don’t deserve this. Why are you here, accepting this, letting him do this for you? It’s _him_ . You know what _he_ does to you.

You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this. You don’t--

Galo’s on the floor in front of him, prying Lio’s hands away from where they’re clawing at his forehead, and it’s gentle, his touch, always so gentle. He holds Lio’s hands in his, looking at him with those _eyes_ , and fuck. Fuck. He can’t do it.

“Hey, whoa, Lio,” Galo says, already babbling, watching Lio start to cry and obviously not knowing where to even start. It startles a chuckle out of Lio, because Galo always manages to do the thing he least expects.

“Why?” he squeaks, voice barely audible, furiously swiping at his eyes, even as his smile shifts higher and higher, something less amused and more manic. 

Galo just looks at him. “Why what?”

“Why do you do this?” 

Galo blinks. “Do what?”

Lio shrugs. He means everything. All of this - the new apartment, the massive second bedroom, the trust. The trust is the biggest one.

“I’m not worth it,” he says, because it folds in all of those answers and fits in several more. “God, Galo, I just--”

And Galo just holds him, pulls him close over the hardwood floor until he’s sitting in his lap between Galo’s arms, and it’s Galo’s warmth - that’s what he tells himself, his _warmth_ \- that lulls him to sleep, and not his everything else.

* * *

It’s little things, a hundred of them, a thousand - and they add up.

Galo’s so sensitive, so charming, so _respectful_ and understanding and perfect and Lio? Lio’s just… not. He’s brash and rude and terrible and drives people away. He’s driving himself away, too, and it’s taken six months of living in their new apartment for Lio to realize that. 

Because Galo? Galo doesn’t care. He never did, and never has. Lio can be as awful as he wants, as awful as he _needs_ , and Galo will always be there, a glass of water in one hand and a pillow in the other, and he sits and listens to Lio talk - he talks _so much_ now - and cry and rant about how terrible he thinks he is until he tires himself out, his voice hoarse. That’s when he gets the water, and then when his head starts to go numb and his eyes grow heavy, the pillow’s there too.

Because Galo knows. He _knows_ . He’s heard everything - all the nonsensical, random, bullshit things his brain feeds to him that he _knows_ are incorrect, but can’t help but repeating out loud, just so he’s not the only one gnawing through them. Galo knows, and it doesn’t matter how much Lio tries to convince him otherwise - either directly or indirectly. He’s still there. He’s still letting Lio stay in his house.

And they’re not in separate rooms anymore. All it took was one night of whining about his life in Galo’s room and falling asleep in his bed for Lio to realize how much that helped, how much he needed it. And now Galo won’t let him sleep anywhere else, because he knew that, too. But the spare bedroom is still made up as a spare bedroom, because Galo knows Lio likes the comfort of a second choice, because it makes making decisions that much easier - especially when they were so selfish in nature.

It’s infuriatingly perfect. _He’s_ infuriatingly perfect.

“Stop it,” Lio snaps, watching Galo prance into their ( _their_ ) bedroom, a tray of pancakes and some fruit in his hands.

“Stop what?” Galo asks, playing dumb. That is something else that Galo knew - how everyone saw him. And Lio saw right through it - the way he played their game, made them think he was being stupid on purpose.

“Don’t--” Lio grips at his hair. “Don’t do that! I know what you’re doing. Stop it. Stop it, Galo.”

“Stop what?” Galo asks again.

“Everything!” Lio barks. “The pancakes. The hair brushing. The… fuck. God damn it.” He’s crying again. 

Galo gently sets the tray down on their bedside table. “Do you want me to?”

“I just said I did, didn’t you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Galo says, snorting. “But did you hear yourself?”

Lio narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Galo says, twirling a hand in the air loosely, his mouth a smile that’s half the size of his face, “are you sure you really want me to stop?”

He isn’t. He can’t be. He can’t live without it anymore - the attention, the care, the support. It keeps him going. He could survive without it, because he always has, but now? Now that he knows what it’s like on the other side, when someone out there wants him to be better, wants him to see himself the way Galo sees him?

Lio’s stomach falls out from underneath him. Fuck.

That’s love, isn’t it? 

“I’ll leave the food here,” Galo says, shrugging, still smiling. He meanders to the closet, starts to put on a pair of gym clothes, and looks over his shoulder at him, already (always) half-naked. “Can’t believe our first proper argument as a couple was over pancakes!” 

Lio’s heart stops, but in the good way. He didn’t know that it could do that, but it makes sense that Galo would know that, too.

* * *

So that’s what they are, now. A couple. Something with a name on it - a label, hanging like a dog tag around Lio’s neck. If found, return to owner.

It’s an exhilarating thought, at first. Galo wanted him. Galo _still_ wants him, even now, after another three months had passed. The spare bedroom is an office, now. The living room has pictures of the two of them hanging in the frames, and Lio’s even smiling in some of them. Those days are rare, but they’re less rare than they used to be, and less rare by the day.

He’s back at Burning Rescue’s fire station, so he sees Galo every waking moment of every waking day. He helps out with the tech - designing it, spitballing plans, tinkering with things on a workbench in the spare space of the garage behind all the trucks, and it’s… nice. The others are like Galo: they’re warm and receptive and give him the space he needs, the inclusion he needs. But they’re not as good at it as Galo. They’re not as perfect.

And the others - they give him looks, sometimes, and they hoot and holler and wolf whistle and carry on whenever Galo leans too close, whenever Lio lets a careless touch linger for a heartbeat too long, whenever the two of them are caught asleep on top of each other on the break room’s couch after a long day.

It makes Lio realize something.

They’re getting into bed when he brings it up, casual and careful all in the same breath. “You know,” he says. “I thought couples kissed.”

Galo pauses, his sheet pulled half-back from the mattress. He looks up. “Yeah?” 

Lio swallows. He doesn’t bother with the blanket, doesn’t bother with the uncertainty, doesn’t bother with the guilt. Because Galo is Galo. Galo knows him. Galo is impossibly, perfectly, amazingly his. And he - Lio Fotia, someone that finds it hard to love even himself - loves him.

He kisses Galo across the bed, something short, sweet. He falls back, instantly regretting it, but then Galo is there, all smiles, so close, so _warm,_ and the regrets vanish, because sometimes their selfishnesses mingled.

And it was Lio, not Galo, that learned that one first.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a ton of myself in Lio, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about the repercussions of living through the life that he did without some sort of lingering trauma. Also Galo is big and beefy and I'm himbosexual.
> 
> I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I hope you enjoyed nonetheless!! 
> 
> **  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites)  
> **


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